Hood Wants Execution Drug Kept Secret

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Attorney General Jim Hood is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to keep secret the identity of the state’s execution drug supplier while he appeals a state judge’s order that the name be released.

Hinds County Chancery Judge Denise Owens ruled last month that the state’s public records law requires officials to release the information, sought by death-penalty opponents at the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center.

In papers filed Thursday, Hood’s office says the Mississippi Department of Corrections could lose access to the lethal injection drugs if the company is identified before the Supreme Court decides the appeal.

At issue is the identity of the pharmacy providing pentobarbital, a barbiturate used to render prisoners unconscious before they are injected with a paralytic agent and a heart-stopping drug.